27 février 2024 | International, Terrestre
24 avril 2018 | International, Naval
3-D printer keeps F-35B flying during USS Wasp deployment
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — State-of-the-art parts fabrication is keeping America's most advanced stealth fighter in the air during its first deployment aboard the USS Wasp.
When a plastic bumper for a landing-gear door wore out this month on an F-35B Lightning II embarked on the amphibious assault ship, a 3-D printer was used to whip up a new one.
The Iwakuni-based jet from Fighter Attack Squadron 121 later flew successfully with the new part, a Marine statement said.
Called “additive manufacturing,” the process from Naval Air Systems Command allowed the Marines of Combat Logistics Battalion 31 to create the new bumper and get it approved for use within days, the statement said. Otherwise, they would have had to replace the entire door assembly, which is expensive and time consuming.
“While afloat, our motto is ‘fix it forward,'” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Daniel Rodriguez, CLB-31's maintenance officer, said in the statement. “3-D printing is a great tool to make that happen.”
The Navy said parts created using the 3-D printer are only a temporary fix, but it kept the jet from being grounded while waiting for a replacement from the United States.
Lt. Col Richard Rusnok, commander of VMFA-121, lauded the use of the new technology.
“Although our supply personnel and logisticians do an outstanding job getting us parts, being able to rapidly make our own parts is a huge advantage as it cuts down our footprint thus making us more agile in a shipboard or expeditionary environment,” he said in the statement.
Marine Sgt. Adrian Willis, a computer and telephone technician who created the bumper, said he was thrilled to be involved in the process.
“I think 3-D printing is definitely the future — it's absolutely the direction the Marine Corps needs to be going,” he said in the statement.
The printer has been used multiple times during the patrol, the Navy said, including to create a lens cap for a camera on a small, unmanned ground vehicle used by an explosive ordnance disposal team.
Templates for the parts will be uploaded to a Marine Corps-wide 3-D printing database to make them accessible to other units.
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Twitter: @bolingerj2004
https://www.stripes.com/news/3-d-printer-keeps-f-35b-flying-during-uss-wasp-deployment-1.522987
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13 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Delays Cause Two-Year, $1.5B Extension For F-35 Block 4
Steve Trimble The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said on May 12 that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Block 4 program must be extended two years due to development delays, adding $1.5 billion to the overall price tag. The original schedule called for completing the Block 4 modernization program in 2024, but the timeline must be extended to 2026, GAO said in the watchdog agency's annual review of the F-35 program. The F-35 Joint Program Office initially estimated the cost to develop all 66 new capabilities in Block 4 would be $10.6 billion. The two-year extension to deliver Block 4 raises the development cost to $12.1 billion, with another $3.4 billion budgeted to procure and insert the capabilities in future U.S. F-35s, GAO said. The Block 4 delays started in 2019. Lockheed planned to deliver the first eight Block 4 capabilities last year, but only one—the automatic ground collision avoidance system—entered service, GAO said. In another example, Lockheed delivered software last year to enable the interim full-motion video capability for the Marine Corps F-35Bs, but failed to deliver the associated hardware, the report said. As Block 4 capabilities have entered testing, the Defense Department's operational testers have noticed other problems. Some of the new capabilities have “caused issues” with existing F-35 functions that previously worked, GAO said. “The contractor had not performed adequate testing of the software before delivering it to the test fleet,” GAO said. For its part, the contractor acknowledged the issues and said they would conduct additional testing in software laboratories before releasing future software blocks, GAO added. https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/aircraft-propulsion/delays-cause-two-year-15b-extension-f-35-block-4
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23 mars 2023 | International, Terrestre
Germany plans to buy Australian-made combat vehicles
The new vehicles will replace the German Army’s Wiesel 2 armored vehicles, the government says.